A Lehigh County jury Friday night found that the private firm contracted to provide medical care to county jail inmates, and the jail's former doctor, were not responsible for an inmate's asthma death in 2012.

Travis Magditch, 27, of Fountain Hill was found dead in his cell Jan. 4, 2012, one day after he was arrested for allegedly possessing drug paraphernalia. His cause of death was listed on an autopsy report as asthma.

Magditch's parents sued PrimeCare Medical Inc., saying the corporation ignored its own written policy by not providing Magditch with a rescue inhaler to keep in his cell. They were seeking more than $1 million in damages, including payment for pain and suffering, and Magditch's future earnings.

PrimeCare's attorneys said Magditch died of complications of heroin withdrawal, and showed no signs he was suffering from an asthma attack.

Jurors deliberated for more than six hours before reaching their verdict. They found there was negligence on PrimeCare's part, but that the negligence did not cause Magditch's death.

Lawyers on both sides described the verdict as favorable to the defense.

David Inscho, the Magditch family's attorney, said the plaintiffs may appeal.

"I think the jury correctly found the medical care substandard," Inscho said. "We will be reviewing all the rulings in the case."

During the three-day trial, jail guards and PrimeCare staff testified they did not hear Magditch cry for help in the hours before he died. PrimeCare's lawyer, John Ninosky, said that proves the autopsy report was flawed.

"If you're having an asthma attack, you're going to be suffering. There are going to be symptoms," he said.

Ninosky reminded the jury that doctors hired by the defense opined that Magditch died because he choked on his own vomit. People who are withdrawing from heroin often become nauseated, the experts said.

Inscho told jurors that PrimeCare instructed its staff to stop giving inmates inhalers in 2008, when the cost of the devices went up.

Inscho told the jury at the start of the trial that Magditch had never been in prison before and called his parents when he got there, begging to be bailed out. The Magditches decided to leave him behind bars, the lawyer said, because they believed he'd get help for his drug addiction.

PrimeCare staff assessed Magditch's breathing shortly after he was brought in and found his lung function was "severely low," Inscho said.

The company, which has contracts with jails in more than 35 Pennsylvania counties, has a written policy that allows inhalers to be provided to inmates, Inscho said, but steered staff away from giving them as a cost-cutting measure. PrimeCare is paid a flat fee for its services in jails, he said, including any medication it gives prisoners.

Ninosky told the jury that Magditch had unlimited access to medical care at the jail and was constantly monitored by corrections officers.

Ninosky said PrimeCare had various reasons for not handing out inhalers to every inmate with a history of asthma, including the fact that they could be used as weapons. He called a coroner's finding that Magditch's cause of death was asthma "an oversimplification."

The prison's former doctor, Dennis Erik Fluck Von Kiel, as his name appears in court documents, was the prison's medical director from 1989 to 2004, when PrimeCare took over medical services at the jail. Von Kiel then became a PrimeCare employee but was fired in 2013 when he was arrested for tax evasion.

The doctor pleaded guilty in federal court in January and is awaiting sentencing. He did not testify at the trial.